Cam Ward has transformed Miami into team to beat in ACC with Heisman-worthy start

The offseason has become a dangerous hype machine that relies too heavily on numbers. That doesn’t take into account chemistry, fit and continuity. We get crazy about transfers and automatically believe however they have performed at a former school will translate immediately.

It frequently doesn’t work that way. Oftentimes, patience is needed.

But in the case of Miami and quarterback Cam Ward, the opposite has been true. There hasn’t been a more valuable player in the entire country, the senior quarterback leading the Hurricanes to their second 4-0 start since 2018. In a soft conference that has seen preseason contenders like Clemson, Florida State and N.C. State struggle, Miami has been dominant. Ward, the former Washington State star, has thrown for 1,439 yards,14 touchdowns and completed 72.4 percent of his passes as Miami has outscored the opposition 209-41. The transfer class which also includes running back Damien Martinez (Oregon State) and defensive linemen Tyler Baron (Tennessee) and Elijah Alston (Marshall) has produced immediately.

Think about this: Miami is already four wins shy of its most victories in a single season since 2017, the last time it reached double figures. The schedule is littered with winnable games, the biggest remaining test is a visit to undefeated Louisville on Oct. 19. Miami will likely be favored the rest of the way otherwise.

Look no further than Ward for how a program that was a combined 12-13 the previous two seasons under Mario Cristobal, and closed last year by losing six of its last nine games, has seemingly been flipped overnight. Ward arrived with extensive experience – he has now played in 48 college games – and the desire to make a name for himself at a big-name program. He has quickly made his mark, becoming the first quarterback to start his career at the school with four consecutive 300-yard passing games.

In a 50-15 rout of South Florida on Saturday, Ward became the 13th college football player to throw for 15,000 yards in a career. Coaches and teammates have raved about his maturity, calling him an “alpha leader.” He’s raised the bar for the Hurricanes. After a dominant Week 1 rout of in-state rival Florida, he pointed to ways Miami could get better. He has deferred credit to the team’s linemen that have controlled the line of scrimmage.

“He continues to prove he’s dynamic and a game-changer for us,” Cristobal said after the latest win.

In hindsight, the wrong Pac-12 quarterback and the wrong ACC school was lauded in the offseason, viewed as the favorite in the conference. It turns out, we should’ve been paying more attention to Ward and Miami rather than DJ Uiagalelei and Florida State. Ward is a Heisman Trophy front-runner and Miami is the team to beat in the ACC. Neither could’ve scripted a better first month to this one-year marriage.

It took Greg Schiano six years in his first go-around at Rutgers for that breakout 11-win season in which the Scarlet Knight rose to the seventh-ranked team in the country at one point. It may be happening faster in his second time in Piscataway, N.J.

In his fifth year, Schiano has Rutgers off to a 3-0 start after its 26-23 win at Virginia Tech, a victory that was one-sided for most of the afternoon. The Scarlet Knights have a star running back in Kyle Monangai, just got back standout linebacker Tyreem Powell from injury and have a relatively soft schedule that doesn’t include the Big Ten big three of Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan. It’s not crazy to see Rutgers remaining undefeated into late October, with Washington, Wisconsin and UCLA at home sandwiched around a trip to Nebraska. The program is absolutely in play to win as many as nine games, which hasn’t happened since 2012.

Saturday in Tuscaloosa, Ala. is only the start. The first major showdown in the SEC. The powerhouse conference boasts six of the top seven ranked teams in the country. Two of them will meet next weekend when No. 4 Alabama hosts No. 2 Georgia in an SEC championship game rematch. Georgia follows that up by visiting No. 1 Texas on Oct. 19. That same Saturday, Alabama meets No. 6 Tennessee, which passed Oklahoma on Saturday, and a week later takes on No. 7 Missouri. In November, No. 5 Ole Miss hosts Georgia and Tennessee visits Georgia. What a gauntlet of a league.